Listen to This Week in Ontario Edublogs on voicEd Radio

Follow me on Twitter

Headed to Denver

I figured out this morning that I should have been a people watcher for a living. I found the whole experience of leaving home and checking in here in Denver for the ISTE Conference so interesting.

The day started at the border at the checkpoint. I think the gentleman must be from Denver because he ran through a list of things to do while here. I think it would probably take all week to do everything but it was nice to get a trip before I took the trip.

I flew out on Frontier Airlines. I’d never been in Detroit’s new North Terminal and when I realize that Denver was the home of Frontier, I looked into it. My friend Dario recommended the airline and he did a nice job. The new North Terminal is interesting. Just like McNamara, it’s just one long building with the terminals. However, the ends of the building tip up just a bit. As I looked the map of the terminal and then at a couple of the airplane at the gate, it occurred to me that the design looked just like the wingspan of an airplane from tip to tip. Very cool.

As is my custom, I got there in plenty of time and walked from wing tip to wing tip looking at the mini-mall layout. It’s very interesting. Soon, it was time to get to the waiting area. I kind of chuckled; there was a time when I would go to the NECC Conference and you knew immediately who the teachers were in your flight. They were the ones with the laptops and other technologies. Now, everyone has something out doing something with it. Times and the presence of technology sure has changed things.

Even en route, little ol’ me has my technology out so that I could resume my enrollment in the mile high bloggers club. Just need to find some internet to upload it when I land.

One thing that doesn’t change and I find it so interesting while people watching is the crowding to get onto the plane. Frontier has a really make sense method of boarding window seats first but that doesn’t seen to go over well with everyone. There was a mass of folks wanting to be the first on and they were asked to step aside to let the others through. It only makes sense. I think it was to be able to get their luggage into the overhead bins because they were too cheap to pay the $20 that the rest of us did! It was somewhat comforting to seeing their bags running down the slide to be put where they should have been in the first place.

The plane was full of personality. Our pilot came out into the cabin to let us know that there were a couple of minor repairs made to the aircraft while we were there. Huh? But, she explained that airplanes run on paperwork even more than fuel. But, everything came to a close and we were off. We had the services of three flight attendance but Judy is worth special mention. She could have run the show by herself. Up and down the aisle, she was there for everyone. Whatever she gets paid, it’s not enough.

I really like the Frontier seats. Great leather and a monitor right in front of you. You could rent a movie or some folks got a complimentary movie by the way they bought their tickets. No problem for me; I have my iPod and my music. What was so cool though was the soothing experience. If we were cheap like me, you could turn the screen off OR you could leave it on and view a loop of clouds. The view was much better than out the window!

The lady next to me had television access so I figured that I might sneak a peek every now and again but, gasp, it was like being at home. She kept switching between the HGTV Channel and some home show on A&E. Bubby would have loved it! As we approach Denver, she turns to the radar channel and we see our flight and its approach to DIA. Plane speed and what I originally thought was flight altitude were shown at the bottom. However, as we landed and taxied, I noticed that it was still at 5290 feet. Then I clued in to what it really was.

The airport is a long way from downtown but fortunately an hour shuttle ride solves that. I get unpacked, realizing that the hunger stems from the time zone difference and so I’m off to grab a snack and hopefully run into some other Ontario colleagues like @ron_mill, @kentmanning, @zbpipe, and @hneisen.